City commissioners will reconvene at 7 p.m. Monday to deliberate on the candidates -- Jerome Kisscorni, an assistant city manager in Kalamazoo; Jim Ritsema, an assistant city manager in Battle Creek, Rebecca Fleury, a village manager in Michigan who formerly worked for the city and George Penn, a business consultant from California.

Commissioners could pick two top candidates and could schedule site visits in those candidates' cities, or they could name one candidate to move forward. In addition, the commission could decide none of the candidates is a good fit.

But commissioners are on a tighter deadline than they were when conducting a first city manager search that they ultimately scrapped in May. All seven city commission seats are up for grabs in the Nov. 5 election, and Kalamazoo City Manager Kenneth Collard is set to retire by January.

Each candidate spent an hour with city commissioners Friday, after meeting city cabinet members and other staff, having lunch with city leaders, stating their cases to community members and touring the city. Commissioner Stephanie Moore, who was out of town Friday on a family emergency, participated in the interviews remotely by phone and by watching the live stream.

Commissioners asked the candidates about their top priorities if hired to replace Collard, how they've been innovative in their current or former roles, their experiences in intergovernmental cooperation and public/private partnerships, their ideas for increasing city revenue and their career failures so far, among other questions.

Key points from each interview are below. For more coverage, visit a live blog of the interviews at www.mlive.com/kalamazoo.

At 45, Fleury is the youngest candidate and the only woman candidate. She has been village manager and finance director in Middleville, Mich. (pop. 3,300) since 2011. Fleury, who lives in Richland Township, formerly worked for the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, in the city manager's office and in the city's community development department.

Fleury said Middleville officials hired her as village manager at a time when they were in extreme fiscal distress and were under a deficit elimination plan with the state of Michigan. Her staff had morale issues and "were living under the shadow of financial concerns," Fleury said. Fleury said she has helped Middleville strengthen its relationship with an adjoining township and with the county.

"I learned the importance of building relationships in the community," Fleury said. "Even though finances are tight things can be accomplished, but only together in partnership."

Fleury said her top priorities, if hired, would be understanding the city's fiscal concerns, addressing the racial profiling study and cultivating the changing culture of the city organization brought on by the Early Retirement Incentive that has thrusted people into supervisory roles.

When it comes to budgeting, Fleury said, "Nothing is a sacred cow anymore," and things can't always be done the way the city has always done them. She said it is important to understand what residents want. She said it gets down to making sure you understand the services the community wants and whether the city can do something better in partnership with the county or surrounding townships.

When asked about enhancing city revenue, Fleury said she has heard discussions about an income tax and a sales tax. It would take teamwork, talking to residents and making sure a solution fits with what residents want, she said.

"If this is the level of service that the community wants, and they know that this is the pot of money that we have to do it with, then if we want to do more, or at least continue, what are they willing to support to make that happen?" she said. "If they're not, then there's reduction in services."

Jerome Kisscorni

Jerome Kisscorni, 60, has been assistant city manager/economic development director for the city of Kalamazoo since 2002. He is a former city manager of Sturgis and Tecumseh, Mich.

Kisscorni said he would be a pragmatic leader who is open to being creative. He said he encourages his staff to push the envelope. When asked about his top three priorities if hired, Kisscorni said the city needs to continue with job generation and expanding the tax base.

He said implementing the recommendations from the racial profiling study will be very important to the community and he will make sure the chief has the resources to complete that. Last, he cited the city's fiscal constraints. The next 36 months are key for the city to be able to move things along, he said.

"I feel strongly we're going to need to get into talking to our community," Kisscorni said. "We have to engage in conversation with our community."

Kisscorni said the city needs to be listening and engaging with the public. Through the past several years, the administration and the commission has been "zeroed in on the fiscal realities that we're facing and we've been more inward," Kisscorni said. "We need to be more outward."

When asked about his innovative ideas in the face of budget challenges, Kisscorni cites doing a fiscal plan. He said he started weaning the economic development corporation and the brownfield board away from general fund money. At the same time, Kisscorni said, his staff either worked on properties or purchased properties so that when a property was developed, the tax increment financing comes back to them to pay off those properties. Now they get dollars back on tax increment to pay administration fees.

He said he's been able to move two positions from being funded out of the general fund to the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority.

As far as enhancing city revenue, Kisscorni said the city needs to start looking at revenue and expenditures and have a community discussion. "Is that a sales tax? Is that a sales tax that can be countywide? Should we be talking about looking at an income tax? A wage tax?"

"We've come to that point where we're bottle-necking and we need priority-based budgeting, what is going to be an affordable costs of services," Kisscorni said. "What do our citizens want and expect?"

George Penn

George Penn, 63, has been vice president and strategic partner at PDA Consulting Group of Cerritos, Calif., a business management and outreach consulting firm, since 2005. Penn also has been the executive director of Nuevo South Community Development Corp. in Los Angeles, Calif. since 2010. He has been assistant city manager in Carson, Calif., and assistant to the city manager in San Diego, Calif.

Penn said his first three priorities if hired as city manager would be developing a relationship with the commission and finding out their priorities, finding out the community's priorities are and the city staff's top priorities.

Penn said engaging the community, stakeholders and staff is important when working on the budget. When asked about innovation with financial challenges, Penn said sometimes the process is more important by allowing the creativity to come out from the staff, including people who know the budget and who know economic development.

He said when he was a city manager in Carson, Calif., he changed schedules from eight-hour days, five days a week, to 10 hour days, 4 days a week. "We're not laying off people, but it saves some money." He said they saw other cities doing that.

"Mainly innovation comes from my team," Penn said.

When asked how he would get additional revenue for the city, Penn said he would go through economic development. "Making and keeping Kalamazoo an attractive place ... and maintaining businesses here in Kalamazoo."

One tool for doing that is enhancing small businesses, he said.

Penn said it is important to sculpt economic development tools so the city isn't taken advantage by a company coming in for a few years and leaving. He also touted his experience in smoothing over police and community race relations in San Diego.

Jim Ritsema

Jim Ritsema, 48, has been assistant city manager in Battle Creek (pop. 52,000), since 2008. Ritsema worked as finance director for Battle Creek from 2000 to 2008. He is a former finance director/clerk-treasurer of Marshall, where he worked with now-Portage City Manager Maurice Evans.

"I've looked at city managers here. There has been longevity in city managers," Ritsema said. "That's what attracts me. My family and I like to locate in a community, be part of a community and help grow that community."

Ritsema said his top priorities if hired would be working with staff to deal with the $3.5 million budget deficit for next year and the longer term liabilities that exist.

He said he knows what it means to have hundreds of employees and all the dynamics of what happens in a big city. He said after talking to employees this week, he has found some employees have angst with the turnover of staff and with more being required of those who are left. He said he would gain trust and let them know they'll work on a plan so they can know what they're doing and feel supported by the administration.

He also cited a few community issues, including the Downtown Development Authority's finances and supporting economic development.

When it comes to budgeting, Ritsema said he likes to budget for the long term, not one-time fixes. An urban core community has a lot of aging infrastructure that needs to be maintained, and the city has to balance what is required with what is nice but not affordable anymore, he said.

Ritsema said that process will be messy and that commissioners will take the heat for that, but that he would provide cover for them.

When asked how he would enhance city revenue, Ritsema proposed an income tax, which Battle Creek has. Even though it is hard to sell, he said, Kalamazoo could band together with Portage and neighboring townships and could identify a service and tie a revenue stream to it that could be voted on, such as an income tax.

Mayor Bobby Hopewell asked Ritsema his ideas for the city manager's seat, after having occupied the assist city manager's seat for so long. Ritsema said he has ideas about balancing being in the city organization and out in the community, about supporting employees and working with the cabinet.

"I'm not a power-hungry person," Ritsema said. "I just want to do a good job and be real with both you and the organization and get us to where we want to go as an organization."

Emily Monacelli is a local government reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Contact her at emonacel@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter.